[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 25 Mar 2005]

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IT'S THOSE DAMNED BULLS
Malcom Lagauche
Today, rarely a word is spoken about the embargo on Iraq that lasted from
August 3, 1990 to May 2003. And, if it is mentioned, it is only in context
of a long-forgotten aspect of the 15-year U.S.-Iraq war. Let's take a brief
look at how the sanctions came into being and then elaborate on the
deceitful methods used to keep them in place (...) In 1995, it was
impossible to get anyone in the U.S. mobilized to condemn the embargo. The
peace groups were dormant (...) I called t! he peace groups. Some feigned
ignorance, while others outright said, "We won't touch that." They had been
co-opted by the U.S. propaganda: propaganda that they would always
criticize only before missiles began flying...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10653&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10653


An announcement by Defense and Support Committee of President Saddam
Hussein , His Comrades and all P.o.W.s and Detainees in Iraq. (ISNAD)
ISNAD
...More than 100.000 Iraqis have been killed in addition to tens of
thousands of detainees who are imprisoned in undisclosed centers where
striking violations to the very basic human rights are committed in ways
that dismay humanity. An unidentified number of Iraqi detainees have died
and many of them suffered permanent injuries or disability. Huge numbers of
Iraqis suff! ered enforced disappearance while international organizations
still escape their duties to secure regular and safe access to those
detainees. International organizations are doing nothing to implement the
related international and humanitarian laws and norms to stop this terrible
deterioration of human values...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10642&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10642


The worst choice possible
Curtis Doebbler, Al-Ahram Weekly ---
Hardly any move that American President George W Bush could make could send
a stronger message to America's critics than the nomination of Mr Paul
Wolfowitz to lead the World Bank. It is the clearest message yet that
America's war is directed against just about everyone and especially the
world's poorest and most dispossessed. The connection between economics and
violence is not new and making it through the World Bank is even less
surprising. The ong! oing destruction of Iraq is but one example, a telling
one...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10648&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10648


Iraq's Parliament: New Farce
Ghali Hassan
Despite calls to demonstrate kind of independence, the so-called Iraq's
'national assembly' met inside the fortress of the "Green zone". Western
media hailed the first meeting as another "historic" moment in Iraq's road
to 'democracy'. In Iraq, the story is of a widespread dismay and anger that
the elections have not produced any change on the ground or even a new
"government". The same expatriate quislings, just more divided on sectarian
line than before the elections, a! re gathered to discuss their new
positions. They met in the shadow of US forces to announce that their
symbiotic relation with the Occupation will continue, and that the US
forces will stay in Iraq to protect them and terrorise the Iraqi people. It
was anything, but a democratic parliament. It was a US theatrical show with
Iraqi puppets playing as actors...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10636&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10636


Back to Fallujah: Tents on Rubbles
Eman Ahmed KHAMMAS, BRussells Tribunal
...A Sheikh in Jolan Mosque told us that Fallojans are working like bees,
rebuilding their houses, without waiting for the promised compensations. At
the beginning they refused to live in Falloja, seeing all the destruction.
His wife slapped her face and cried bitterly when she first saw her ruined
house. Now she is living among the rubbles. But the Sheikh insists that
before talking about rebuilding we have to ask why? Why children were to!
rn apart, why women were exposed to killing and humiliation? "Now it is us
who are asking for Al- Zarqawi? Where is he? Our city, our history, our
documents, our libraries are all erased; we want to know why is that?"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10630&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
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Accounts of Iraq Raid Rife With Discrepancies
Chris Shumway, The NewStandard
US and Iraqi military officials gave inconsistent accounts of what they
both say was a major assault Tuesday on a remote rebel training camp(...)
An unnamed Iraqi source at a joint US-Iraqi command center in Tikrit told
Reuters that Iraqi forces killed 80 insurgents, while only eleven commandos
died. He said the fierce battle lasted twelve hours (...) On Wednesday, an
AFP reporter visited the crater ridden site of a camp near Lake Tharth! ar
where rebels moved about in the open. According to a man claiming to be a
member of the Secret Islamic Army, government forces had attacked that camp
but only killed eleven rebels. The man and dozens of fellow fighters, he
said, had not left the area since the firefight ended. Also according to
the AFP, local hospitals reported no casualties. Photographic and videotape
evidence supporting the various claims by US and Iraqi officials appears to
be lacking...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10641&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
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Afghanistan, Iraq and women's rights
Workers World
...In Iraq, under the secular nationalist governments that followed the
expulsion of British colonialism in 1958, women benefited from
redistribution of some of the country's oil wealth to the people. There was
free education through the university level for all, encouraging families
to keep daughters in school and not pull them out for early marriage. The
Iraqi government guaranteed jobs for women who wanted to work, equal pay
for equal work and free health car! e, including pre- and post-natal care
for mothers. Working women were guaranteed six months paid maternity leave,
with subsidized daycare available in most workplaces. Basic food and
housing were subsidized (...) Now, under the current U.S. puppet government
in Iraq, women are actually losing legal rights that had been theirs since
the late 1950s...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10652&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10652


US Air Force bombs civilian zones in western Iraq
Granma International
US occupation forces' fighter planes have attacked civilian populations in
the Iraqi cities of Haditha and Haqlaniyah, in the western province of Al
Anbar, one of the key regions of the so-called Sunni Triangle or "Triangle
of Death". Despite the fact that the US command denied today that it had
carried out aerial operations against these cities, eye witnesses and those
wounded confirmed the attacks by the foreign air force...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10651&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
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Weapons of mass deception revisited
Patrick Seale, Al-Ahram Weekly
Ever since the United States invaded Iraq two years ago -- toppling Saddam
Hussein, smashing the state, and killing tens of thousands of Iraqis --
commentators have puzzled over America's war aims. What was the strategic
plan behind the carnage? What was Washington trying to achieve? If there
was a master-plan, where would the US strike next? The early justifications
for the war were soon to prove false, even fraudulent (...) It appeared
that th! e aim was to bring about a fundamental change in the regional
balance of power to the benefit of the United States and Israel...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10649&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
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US troops clash with insurgents in Iraq's Tal Afar
WISTV.
More firefights broke out between US forces and insurgents in the northern
Iraq town of Tal Afar Thursday. For the second day in a row US troops
fought with insurgents in the streets. Tal Afar is about 40 miles west of
Mosul, and is considered a tough town. Last summer US forces assaulted Tal
Afar and tried to cut insurgent's supply routes. Two civilians have been
killed in the fighting so far.There's been no word on US casualties...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10650&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10650


American nightmare
Hassan Nafaa, Al-Ahram Weekly
...Wolfowitz was one of the most determined propagators of the claim that
Saddam Hussein had enough weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to blow up the
entire world. He was not just one of the architects of the war against
Iraq; he was the most zealous of them and the least heedful of the
consequences. It was he who insisted repeatedly that the US would not need
more that 10,000 troops to sweep into Iraq and topple Saddam and that the
entire war effort including recon! struction would cost no more than $65-95
billion (...)And now this person whose judgement has proven so dismally
poor stands to become head of the World Bank (...) As horrifying as this
image is, to many Wolfowitz is a gentle lamb when compared to Bolton, who
for the next few years we will have the pleasure of seeing presiding over
the Security Council...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10647&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10647


Fresh fighting in Fallujah as Iraqi friendly fire kills five
Turkish Press.com
Clashes erupted Thursday between Iraqi forces and rebels in the former
rebel citadel of Fallujah, while a friendly fire incident near the Syrian
border between Iraqi police and army left five dead. "There are clashes
between the army and police and insurgents, but we don't have a toll yet,"
the defense ministry official said. An AFP reporter said shots were heard
from the city's northwestern Jolan district and Iraqi police sealed off t!
he district around 1:30 pm (1030 GMT)...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10646&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10646


Iraq: Deadlock by Design
Gwynne Dyer, Arab News - Iraqwar.ru
Six weeks after the Jan. 30 election that White House press flacks hailed
as the "purple revolution," the new Iraqi national assembly opened on
Wednesday, March 16 — but there is still no new government in Iraq. Partly
that is because of the attitude of the Kurds, summed up last month by
Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani in a New York Times interview: "If the
Kurdish people agree to stay in the framework of Iraq in one form or
another as a federation, then! other people should be grateful to them."
And partly it's because the US wrote the rules in such a way that the Kurds
would have a stranglehold on the political process...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10644&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10644


OUR SONS WERE SACRIFICED FOR AN ILLEGAL WAR
Military Families Against the War
No government minister has been available to explain the apparent change in
the legal advice given by Lord Goldsmith in March 2003 regarding war with
Iraq. Not only was the resignation letter from Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy
chief legal adviser to the Foreign Office, censored but the government
continues to refuse to release Lord Goldsmith's full legal advice. This
situation should not go on. On the 'Today' programme this morning forme! r
defence minister Lord Gilbert blustered that the public have no right to
see the advice. 'It must be taken on trust' he said. This government has
lost that trust...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10645&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
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The Ministry of Health confirms that the Occupation Forces have used
internationally prohibited weapon to strike Fallulah
Islam memo, Translated by Dijla Waheed - www.albasrah.net
...Al-Sheikhly has talked about the final results of the Truth Searching
(Finding) Committee on the situation and plight of the Fallujah
inhabitants. He said that the city is still situated under the influence of
chemical agents and other materials which cause in the long run dangerous
and debilitating diseases for the civilian populati! on...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10643&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
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Sunni Powers Oppose Federalism in Western Iraq
Mazen Ghazi, IOL Correspondent
Leading Sunni powers took a swipe at calls for a federalism in western
Iraq, warning this only plays into the hands of the occupation by
contributing to slice the country. "Such calls only serve the interests of
the occupation and fuel sectarian strife by pitting Iraqis against one
another," Mothana Harith Al-Dari, spokesman for the Association of Muslim
Scholars (AMS), told IslamOnline.net on Thursday, March 24...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10637&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
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Canada denies refugee status to American
BETH DUFF-BROWN, Associated Press Writer
A U.S. Army paratrooper who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Iraq was
denied political asylum Thursday, dealing a blow to other deserters here
who argue such duty would force them to commit atrocities against
civilians. An immigration board ruled that Jeremy Hinzman had not convinced
its members he would face persecution or cruel and unusual punishment if
returned to the United States...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10639&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10639


American war resister in Canada speaks with WSWS: "The wealthy oil people
are making money off of this"
Lee Parsons, WSWS
Anderson is from a working class background in Lexington, Kentucky, where
most of his family, including his mother and daughter, still live. He
joined the military as a way to get medical training in the hope of
becoming a physical therapist, but was transferred to combat when he failed
to pass the required tests. After training in Germany, he was posted to
Iraq last year, where he spent seven! months before coming to Canada. At
the age of 22, Anderson was half way through his four-year tour of duty
when he heard about the case of Hinzman and decided to follow his example.
Since then, Anderson has publicly spoken out against the war...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10638&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10638


Army Documents Shed Light on CIA 'Ghosting' Systematic Concealment Of
Detainees Is Found
Josh White, Washington Post Staff Writer
Senior defense officials have described the CIA practice of hiding
unregistered detainees at Abu Ghraib prison as ad hoc and unauthorized, but
a review of Army documents shows that the agency's "ghosting" program was
systematic and known to three senior intelligence officials in Iraq (...)
The documents show that the highest-ranking general in Iraq at the time
acknowledged that his t! op intelligence officer was aware the CIA was
using Abu Ghraib's cells, a policy the general abruptly stopped when
questions arose...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10634&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10634


Depleted Uranium: Cause and Effect 4 Hour Special on The 'X' Zone Radio
Show and TalkStar Radio Network
Bob Nichols, Axis of Logic
...DU contaminates land, causes ill-health and cancers among the soldiers
using the weapons, the armies they target and civilians, leading to birth
defects in children. Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's
depleted uranium project -- a former professor of environmental science at
Jacksonville University and onetime US army colonel who was tasked by the
US department of ! defence with the post-first Gulf war depleted uranium
desert clean-up -- said use of DU was a 'war crime'...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10633&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
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War resignation letter censored
Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian
The government yesterday tried to suppress evidence that the attorney
general believed war against Iraq was illegal less than two weeks before
British troops joined the US-led invasion of the country. It has removed a
key passage in the resignation letter written by Elizabeth Wilmshurst,
deputy chief legal adviser at the Foreign Office, on March 18 2003, the eve
of the invasion. The remainder of her letter - in which she described the
planned inv! asion as a "crime of aggression" - was released yesterday
under the Freedom of Information Act...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10626&s2=25>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10626




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information concerning occupied Iraq: news, analysis, documents and texts
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